Saturday, 10th February:
At 5.00am we still seem to be in open water. By 6.00am the outline of the South Shetlands is visible on the starboard side and we're in much smoother water, so I get up and go to the bridge. The ship is manoevring to its first anchorage and the captain, Peter Skog, is in command. 'Antarctic Dream' has passed through the Nelson Strait, come around Robert Island and anchors in Discovery Bay on Greenwich Island. After breakfast, we get the compulsory Zodiac Safety and Antarctic briefing. The Antarctic is regulated under a 1959 Treaty, as amended, as a zone of peace and science. Tourism is regulated by the International Association Antarctica Tour Operators. More information here.
Around 10.0am the Zodiacs start taking us ashore. There's bright sunshine and you'd be tempted to describe the weather as balmy. We walk around the island, past an abandoned Argentine Research station and see a number of Weddell Seals who seem unperturbed by our presence. Within an hour, the sky is overcast, the wind picks up and the temperature plummets. We're all happy to be picked up by the Zodiacs and returned to the ship.
Whilst lunch is taken, the ship moves the short distance to Aitcho Island. We disembark but conditions are worse than in the morning. It's raining quite hard and fairly miserable. Our landing point is a shingle beach in the middle of a huge colony of Gentoo penguin. There are lots of juveniles, who seem quite curious about the big red penguins arriving (the tour company loan red parkas, though some people prefer to use their own). But penguin poo does smell! The beach is criss-crossed with white, straight lines of poo, each about 15 inches long, produced by the single, explosive evacuation they employ. Away from the beach, the water from the melting snow converts the poo into a rather evil-smelling mud. We're quite glad of the tour company gumboots! Click for my pictures.
Sunday, 11th February:
In the night, we've moved further South to around latitude 64 degrees South. Over breakfast, we can study the large number of pieces of ice which litter the sea and the ice-covered cliffs showing fracture lines as huge lumps of ice prepare to tumble into the sea. The fissures often have an etherial blue coloration.
We disembark by Zodiac on another shingle beach on the island of Cuverville. There's a large Gentoo population here, as well. The centre of the island rises up a few hundred feet in a snow-covered dome. Our guide Rodrigo leads a walk towards the summit. Once past the main colony and the penguin poo, we climb over loose scree to pass a number of subsidiary colonies, some distance from the sea. Our route now takes us uphill over rock and snow - difficult climbing in gumboots. The party becomes progressively smaller as members drop out and eventually I decide to stop, having covered a respectable distance and obtained incredible views. As I sit in the snow, catching my breath, there is an occasional thunder clap, as more ice slides from the cliffs into the sea, but the ice fall is not visible from my vantage point. The weather is fairly mild and, for most of the time, I'm not wearing gloves. I look on in mild disapproval as some of the youngsters descend by sliding on their backsides over the snowfield, then I decide it's perhaps not such a bad idea and copy them. I return to the ship exhilarated but exhausted.
Julio announces that our planned afternoon visit to Neko Bay, which should have been our first landing on the Antarctic Peninsula, has been cancelled, because of an electrical problem in the engine room.The captain takes the ship back to Cuverville, which offers a safe anchorage, while the problem is being looked at. We anchor near a Russian ship. This is a converted scientific ship now leased to Oceanwide, Holland. There are up to 32 ships at a time doing these cruises. Their movements are carefully choreographed so that they do not interfere with one another. Rather ominously, the ship becomes silent as all the machinery is shutdown to allow the repair to go ahead. I can hear an auxiliary running and there's certainly power in my cabin. I have two oil-filled electric heaters in my cabin and the thermostats have been set to maximum since I boarded. Within a couple of hours, the captain is on the public address to confirm that the problem, a burnt-out variable resistor, is fixed and that we are on the way South to Waterboat Point.
After dinner, the Zodiacs take us ashore. There is a Chilean Air Force Antarctic base here (although it's serviced by the Chilean Navy) called Gabriel Gonzales Videla Station. There's another large Gentoo colony here, so our boots get a bit muddy. It's a calm evening and, even at 9.30 pm, quite pleasant, gloves not required. About half a dozen of the Chileans are manning the Museum. This a decent wooden shed with a good selection of photographs of the history of the site captioned helpfully in English. The Museum sells a variety of souvenirs - payment in US dollars.
